Devil's Bargain Read online

  Devil’s Bargain

  A Novel in the Alastair Stone Chronicles

  R. L. King

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Don’t miss Alastair Stone’s Ongoing Adventures!

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  Books by R. L. King

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2019 by R. L. King

  Devil’s Bargain: A Novel in the Alastair Stone Chronicles

  First Edition, January 2019

  Edited by John Helfers

  Cover Art by Streetlight Graphics

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people, except by agreement with the vendor of the book. If you would like to share this book with another person, please use the proper avenues. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Author’s Note

  Devil’s Bargain is set during the four-year period between Stone and a Hard Place and The Forgotten. It’s written as a completely standalone story, with no connection to any of the other novels in the series (yet, anyway! No promises about the future!)

  I sometimes use the shorter works (novellas, short stories and short novels like this one) as a place to try out experiments with different formats and points of view. In the case of Devil’s Bargain, that means I’m trying out a new, one-shot protagonist and a first-person point of view.

  1

  I’d imagine the self-help books have a lot of good advice about how to behave at a funeral. Maybe I should have read some of them, because I’m fairly sure doing my best to avoid the distraught widow wasn’t on the list of acceptable options.

  Oh, I felt guilty about it—plenty guilty. Susan is my sister, after all, and despite our past differences I can’t even imagine how horrible she had to be feeling right now.

  I watched her from across the reception hall, holding baby Emma in her arms like an anchor. She was surrounded by her friends, a gaggle of women in their mid-twenties hovering near her, trying to comfort her with their presence because they clearly had no idea what to say.

  To be fair, not many people that age would know the right way to comfort a twenty-six-year-old woman who’d lost her husband less than a week ago in a horrific auto accident—you couldn’t really blame the women for fumbling around in fear of blurting out something that would set Susan off again.

  The service had been heartfelt, if more than a little awkward. Though I’d never been to a funeral for a twenty-seven-year-old man, I suspected the majority of the people in attendance—mostly friends of Susan’s and Chuck’s—felt the same way. Facing your own mortality does that to you. One minute you’re here, and the next minute you’re at the bottom of a ravine with your head through the shattered windshield of the late-model Volvo you’d just paid off last month. When you’re in your twenties and you think you still have your whole life ahead of you, confronting anything to the contrary can be mind-blowing.

  “Terrible thing,” a voice said to my right.

  I looked up from my little plate of beige, flavorless cookies to see an older woman in a dark blue dress looking at me with sympathy in her eyes. She carried her own plate in one hand, her other crumpling the program for the service. “Er—yes. It is.”

  “You’re Susan’s sister, aren’t you?”

  I wondered how she knew that. “Yes, Tamara Huntley. And you’re—”

  “Susan and Chuck’s neighbor, Mrs. Bond. I’ve known them for a few months now, ever since I moved in next door shortly after Emma was born. I watched the little one for them sometimes, when they needed a night alone.” She lowered her head, probably regretting what she’d said as she realized Susan and Chuck would never have another night alone again.

  I swallowed and shook my head. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” The last thing I wanted right now was to make small talk, but sometimes you don’t get what you want.

  “So terrible,” she said again. She patted my arm. “Chuck was so young, and had such a bright future ahead of him. You should talk to Susan, you know. I understand you two aren’t the closest, but—”

  That was an understatement, but of course I didn’t say that. I wondered what Susan had told her about me. “I will,” I said instead, and it was the truth, after a fashion—I’d have to say something to her before I left, even if it was just the basic “I’m sorry for your loss” she’d get from everybody else. “It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Bond.”

  I drifted away, projecting an air of unapproachability to keep anyone else from coming to chat. It was easy—grief and unapproachability often went hand in hand, whether we wanted them to or not. I wondered how I would be in Susan’s place—if it were Mark instead of Chuck inside that closed wooden casket, or worse yet, Melanie or Max. None of them were here today; Mark was in New York on business, and I’d left Mel and Max with a sitter. Mel had wanted to come to the funeral, but I’d forbidden it. Nine-year-olds shouldn’t have to come face to face with that kind of grief. I told her we’d talk about it later.

  The reception was winding down; the big plate of cookies was nearly empty, the urns of coffee and tea drained, a steady stream of mourners stopping to give their best wishes to Susan before leaving. She was sitting down now, shoulders slumped in her black dress, looking utterly bereft. She didn’t seem like she’d found any comfort in the day—in fact, she looked more like she wanted to sink through the floor and disappear.

  Talk to her. You’re her sister, damn it. Act like it, for once.

  I didn’t move. I wasn’t proud of it, but I didn’t. I had no idea what to say to her, and what’s more, I knew nothing I could say would help. Why make it worse for both of us?

  I’ll go to the bathroom. Touch up my makeup, wash my hands, and then I’ll come back and talk to her. Yes, that was a good idea. With one final glance, I headed out of the room and down the hall to the ladies’ room.

  It was deserted. I took more time than was strictly necessary, staring at my plain, pale face in the mirror. I had dark circles under my eyes, and looked like I hadn’t slept in days. Guilt, that was what it was. It was easy to push it aside normally, since Susan lived in San Mateo and I was in Redwood City and we ran in completely different circles. We hadn’t seen each other in over a year, and I doubt either of us minded that. But she’s still your sister. Maybe it’s time to put the past behind you.

  Before I could make a decision, the bathroom door opened. I flicked my gaze up to the mirror at the newcomer, and froze in shock.

  Susan stood there in her black dress, her face paler than mine, her blonde hair com
ing loose in strands, and her eyes glittering with unshed tears. She didn’t look startled, though, but met my gaze with a determined one of her own. “Hello, Tam.”

  I turned so I could look at her straight on instead of in the mirror. “Susan. I—was just coming back out. I am so sorry…”

  There was something odd in her expression—intense and disturbed, beyond even her obvious deep grief. She still held Emma snuggled into her shoulder, and her agitation seemed to upset the baby as well. She made little gulping noises and clutched at her mother with her tiny hands.

  “Tam…” Susan moved closer to me, glancing back at the door as if expecting it to open. “I need to talk to you. I don’t know who else to talk to about this. I know we haven’t been the best of friends, but you’re family, and…please, Tamara.”

  That wasn’t what I’d expected. “Uh—sure. Of course. What is it?” I knew I sounded awkward, but she couldn’t blame me for that.

  Another quick glance toward the door. “Not here. Can you—can you come somewhere with me after this? Somewhere public, like the Starbucks up the street? I don’t want to go home yet…”

  This was getting stranger. “You don’t want to go home? Susan, is something wrong?” Of course there’s something wrong, you idiot. “Something…else,” I amended lamely. “Are you afraid of something?”

  “Just…please.” She tightened one arm around Emma until she squeaked, and gripped my wrist with the other. “Please say you will. I don’t know what else to do.”

  “Uh—” I’d have to call the sitter and ask her to stay another hour, but that was the least I could do. My sister practically vibrated with agitation and looked like she might scream at any moment. “Yes. I’ll come. Can you tell me anything about what this is about?”

  “I’m scared, Tam.” Her grip tightened on my arm, and then she let go, whirled, and headed back toward the door. Before she disappeared through it, I felt a chill at her last words: “I’m scared something’s going to happen to Emma.”

  2

  She was already at the Starbucks near the church when I got there. The place wasn’t crowded early on a Tuesday afternoon, so I spotted her instantly at a table along the left wall, under a weird abstract print that looked like two flowers having a fight. Emma burbled in her car seat on the other end of the table. Except for the black mourning dress, Susan could have been any other young mother out to get some air with her baby.

  “Thanks for coming,” she said when I sat down with my steaming cup of coffee. She clutched hers, almost as if she was afraid something would happen if she let it go.

  “I—don’t know what to say, Suze. Every time I try to come up with something it ends up sounding lame. So I guess just—I’m sorry.” I was sorry for a lot of things, truth be told. Susan didn’t look anything like the wild party girl of only a few years ago. Now, even without taking her sad expression and uncharacteristically mature outfit into consideration, she looked somehow more…settled. Maybe sudden widowhood did that to you.

  “It’s okay. I get it.” She extended her left index finger to Emma, who grasped it and held on tight, waving her other arm happily. Babies truly were oblivious. I envied them.

  “You said you wanted to talk about something.” I glanced at the baby. “Something about Emma?”

  She dropped her gaze. “I don’t even know how to start.”

  “Just—start. What did you mean about being worried something was going to happen to her?” It seemed like a fairly reasonable fear: Emma was her and Chuck’s first (and only now, a bitter little voice reminded me) child, and both of them had doted on her to the point of annoyance ever since she’d arrived six months ago. I didn’t get the constant updates due to our estrangement, but I heard enough from mutual friends to get the idea. After losing her husband, it seemed only natural for her to hold her child close and fear for her safety.

  She swallowed, pulled her hand back, and gripped her coffee cup so hard she dented it and the lid popped off. “You’re not going to believe this. I know you won’t. But—you have to. I don’t know who else to tell.”

  “Believe what? Come on, Suze, just tell me. I’ll help if I can.”

  When her gaze came up, it looked positively haunted. “A witch wants to take her away from me.”

  At first, I didn’t think I’d heard her right. I stared at her, knowing I must look like a gaping idiot, and tried to replay my mental recorder to parse what she’d just said. It had sounded like “witch,” but that couldn’t be right. “Bitch,” maybe? “Rich”…rich what? Finally, I gave up. “Could you repeat that?”

  She pulled Emma’s seat closer. “A witch. A witch wants to take Emma. And I think she might have killed Chuck because I wouldn’t let her.”

  She really had said “witch.” I sighed. “Susan—”

  I should have known better. I thought it might be different now, that marriage and motherhood and now widowhood might have changed her, but here it was, the same old thing—Susan, trying to get attention by telling outlandish lies, getting in trouble, and generally doing everything else she could think of to suck all the focus onto herself. I started to get up. “Listen. You know I’m sorry about Chuck. If I can help you—babysit Emma, bring you anything, whatever, let me know. But—”

  Her hand shot out and locked around my wrist before I could rise. “Tam…please. I promise I’m not lying. I swear to God—I swear on Chuck’s memory—I’m not. I’m scared.”

  I almost wrenched free and stalked out. If she wanted to act like a crazy person, she could do it without me enabling it.

  But then I got a good look at her eyes. I’d gotten pretty good at spotting the sly gleam behind her crocodile tears when we were growing up, but now I saw no sign of it. She truly was terrified about something. I wondered if she was drinking again, or if Chuck’s death had finally sent her over the edge.

  Okay. I’d humor her for now, at least long enough to calm her down. I looked around; a couple customers had glanced our way, but had now returned to their own business.

  “Okay,” I said. “I won’t go. Tell me why you think a witch is after Emma.” It sounded so absurd coming out of my rational, no-nonsense mouth that I almost laughed, but then I looked at her again and the desire fled.

  She took a gulp of coffee, straightened Emma’s light blanket, and seemed to compose herself for several seconds. Then she threw a nervous glance toward the door and leaned in closer. “Remember Darby Jameson?” she whispered.

  I stiffened. I never thought I’d hear her utter that name again. I didn’t think anybody in our family would ever forget Darby Jameson and what he’d done to Susan when she was nineteen. “Yeah.”

  “Remember what happened to him?”

  Once again, there was no way I could forget it. Despite the differences I’d had with Susan, I’d believed every word of her story about what had occurred. I knew it wasn’t a very Christian feeling to have, but I’d raged along with her when his prominent family’s wealth and connections had gotten him off with a slap on the wrist and warning, and I’d cheered along with her when he’d been killed in a freak accident not long afterward, plummeting to his death from a tenth-floor balcony at a drunken party. I considered it justice done, not just for Susan but for any other girls or women who might cross his path in the future. “Yeah. But I don’t see what he—”

  “It was my fault,” she said in a small voice.

  “What was? Suze, that’s crazy. You shouldn’t even be thinking like that. He was drunk, and he shouldn’t have—”

  She held up a hand. “No. Not…not what he did to me.” Once again, she leaned across the table, getting as close to me as she could. “It’s my fault he died.”

  This was getting crazier. I gripped her hand. “Susan. Come on. You’re not yourself right now. I totally understand that—this has been a terrible time for you. Let me take you home, and—”

  “No.” Her gaze, firmer now, met mine. “I have to tell you this, Tam. I have to tell somebody, and nobody e
lse will believe me.”

  What makes you think I’ll believe you? I thought, but didn’t say. “Tell me what?”

  She took a slow deep breath and another swallow of coffee. “Right after…it happened…right after Darby’s family made some kind of deal and they decided they didn’t have enough evidence to prosecute him, I…I was a mess. I thought about killing myself. I was so angry, so ashamed…my friends were avoiding me…even Mom and Dad were acting like they didn’t believe me. I wanted to hurt him, Susan. I wanted him to suffer, like I suffered.”

  I certainly understood that feeling. If it had been me, I’d have felt the same way. Hell, I did feel the same way, vicariously. “That’s—I get it. Of course you did. It’s human.”

  “Yeah. It’s human to want it. To fantasize about it. But…I did something about it.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “You did?”

  She nodded miserably, fussing with Emma again so she didn’t have to look at me.

  “But you didn’t kill him, Suze. You were nowhere near that party where he died.”

  “No. But—” Deep breath. “Just before it—a week or so—I saw this flyer on a telephone pole in the City. I’m not sure why I even looked at it. Usually I just ignore stuff like that. But…it seemed to call to me.”

  “The flyer…called to you.”

  “Yes.” Her gaze flicked up, then back down again. “It had all these weird symbols on it, and a woman’s name, and it said things like I’ll help you achieve your fondest desire…stuff like that. And there was an address, in the Haight. It was on one of those little tear-off things at the bottom, and it was the last one left.”